DEP released today the report of Booz Allen Hamilton, a
consultant engaged in January to assist DEP in the transformation if its Bureau
of Customer Services. Booz Allen Hamilton analyzed all aspects of BCS, including
customer service operations, revenue collection methods, organizational
structure and existing technology systems. Over the past 18 months, customer
services and billing practices have improved significantly, with more robust,
accurate and easily accessible information now available to all 826,000 water
and sewer account holders throughout the City. In addition, DEP has begun to
pilot and implement a new set of collection and enforcement strategies that will
increase customer payment rates and recoup past-due revenue from chronically
delinquent customers. The report will be available online at www.nyc.gov/dep.

DEP has already begun to implement many of Booz Allen Hamilton’s
recommendations, including:

Implementing a Payment
Incentive Program DEP has begun
sending payment incentive offers to more than 8,000 residential accounts,
informing them that their late payment charges will be eliminated if they settle
their accounts immediately. Those who do not settle their accounts within 90
days will be scheduled for service termination. The Payment Incentive Program
will afford customers with outstanding accounts receivable and a history of
billing disputes an opportunity to settle their accounts and avoid serious
collection actions. DEP will conduct extensive outreach in conjunction with the
Payment Incentive Program to ensure all eligible customers are aware of this
one-time opportunity.

Comprehensively overhauling
the dispute resolution process
Per BAH’s analysis, which revealed existing dispute resolution practices to be
inefficient and decentralized, DEP has overhauled the dispute resolution process
throughout headquarters and all borough offices. Beginning shortly, specialized
customer service representatives will be able to resolve minor customer disputes
at the first level of customer contact, either over the phone or in person, and
DEP has already implemented an easy-to-use, standardized customer dispute form,
available on our website or any of our offices, that will significantly expedite
the dispute resolution process. Additionally, DEP is offering certain customers
with especially complex disputes the opportunity to discuss their complaints in
informal discussions with BCS managers.

Terminating the service of
chronically delinquent residential and commercial customersTo collect on past-due arrears and increase
future payment rates, DEP has implemented several service termination pilots in
the last several months. In September, DEP noticed 21 single-family, residential
customers, informing them that their water service would be terminated if they
didn’t pay a specified portion of their debt within 30 days. All paid within 30
days and no service was terminated. DEP has also launched a commercial shut-off
pilot for more than 30 commercial customers who had defaulted on payment
agreements. Last Friday, DEP began issuing shut-off notifications under existing
Water Board regulations for approximately 2,000 commercial customers with
significantly overdue accounts.

Providing more accurate
billing information to customers In
pursuit of this goal, DEP will install Automated Meter Reading (AMR) technology
for all accounts Citywide beginning June 2008. AMR will allow DEP to decrease
the occurrence of estimated bills and provide more accurate billing and
consumption information to customers on a more frequent schedule. To take
advantage of this more robust customer data, DEP will also be implementing a new
Customer Information System (CIS) that will allow for account information to be
tracked and managed more effectively and a new customer bill that will
communicate this information more clearly and effectively. An interim,
re-designed bill is expected in June of 2008, with a final version launched in
2009 to dovetail with the installation of AMR throughout the City. In order to
select leading systems, DEP is currently field-testing two potential AMR
technologies in 800 homes ahead of Citywide implementation.

Transforming the
organizational structure of BCS to increase efficiency and standardize
operational proceduresBCS recently
overhauled its organizational structure, following the recommendations of Booz
Allen Hamilton, to align it more closely with best practices used by other water
utilities throughout the country.